Upon entering the store, Duffy immediately recognised the folly of her detour. "The supermarket was full up, full to the brim," she said. "Kids were running across the top of trolleys throwing cumquats at each other." Duffy attempted to retreat through the entrance, but had been trapped by an enormous family of polygamists. "I knew they were polygamists," Duffy explained, "because the gentleman had relations with all three of his wives, and some of his children too, right there on the floor that night."

Left no other option, Duffy was forced to shop her way out of the store. "I figured that since I was stuck there, I might as well get a few other things as well. I remembered that I needed a bottle of the viscous fluid produced from crushed tomatoes, so I decided to restock the whole pantry." Slowly inching forwards through the maze of agitated shoppers, Duffy eventually collected most of the items she desired. "Then I heard a chilling voice from high above that I'll never forget, not 'til the day I die," she said, trembling. That voice was Stanley Tuchee, pimple-faced and snot-nosed evening check-out supervisor; the words spoken: "Ten minutes 'til closing."

"I never realised I had been shopping for eleven hours," Duffy explained, "because my portable wrist-strapped timepiece had stopped working at half-past noon." The realisation was clearly shared by many of her fellow shoppers, because the announcement quickly led to a full-on stampede towards the checkout. "I don't know why the store is designed like a bottleneck, or why there is only one checkout, or why there were 1500 people in a small suburban supermarket at 8.45 on a Tuesday night, but I do know this: it wasn't pretty," said Evelyn Dixon, the manager of Rancho Supermarket who had a bird's-eye view of the carnage from her elevated office. Hundreds of trolleys all aiming at speed for a four foot space near the exit veered dangerously into stock and shoppers alike. The result was a mangled mass of trolleys and bodies -- with Duffy trapped in the middle.

Hours passed slowly as the local fire department worked on freeing the shoppers. "I fell hard on my behind in the crash," Duffy said, while pointing to her rear end as if it were a novelty. "Then I was trapped. Luckily my behind went numb so I didn't feel the searing pain," she said as she massaged her buttocks in a distracting and disgusting fashion. "I was pinned down so I couldn't even reach the food in my trolley. Now I know how the children in Africa feel when it's Christmas and they haven't even got Mad Max to watch on the TV."

Eventually, using the jaws of life, crowd-control water cannons and a whole lot of eggnog, Duffy was freed at noon today. Desperate that the ordeal would not be for naught, Duffy then queued for a further two hours to complete her purchases. "My only regret," she explained, "is forgetting to buy the barrel-shaped nickel and cadmium energy cells that power consumer electronic goods." That'll be another trip. But, hopefully, a shorter one.